Anthony “Rob” Taglianetti P-J file photo by Eric Tichy

The second-degree murder conviction against a former Virginia resident who shot and killed Clymer Central School’s superintendent in September 2012 has been upheld by the Fourth Department Appellate Division in Rochester.

The unanimous ruling was announced Friday.

Rochester appeals attorney Donald Thompson spoke in February on behalf of 49-year-old Anthony “Rob” Taglianetti II, who was convicted in November 2013 for the killing of Clymer Superintendent Keith Reed Jr. The former Woodbridge, Va., resident has been serving a 25-years-to-life sentence at the Great Meadow Correctional Facility in Comstock, New York.

Reed, 51, had been reported missing by colleagues and friends on Sept. 23, 2012. Early the next morning, Chautauqua County sheriff’s deputies returned to the superintendent’s Clymer residence with a K-9 unit and, after a short search, discovered Reed’s body about 100 feet from his home.

According to the prosecution at the time of trial, Taglianetti became enraged after discovering an online affair between his wife, Mary, and Reed in August 2012. Driving 350 miles from his home in Virginia to Clymer, Taglianetti searched for Reed at Clymer Central School before shooting him at his home on Sept. 21, 2012.

At the time, Taglianetti was an oral historian at the Marine Corps Museum in Quantico, Va.

Thompson argued before the justices in Rochester that then-Chautauqua County Court Judge John T. Ward erred in not allowing Taglianetti’s attorneys to enter a notice of intent to provide a mental health defense because it had been filed after a 45-day window once Taglianetti was arraigned. He further stated that even if the notice was filed late, the jury should have been allowed to consider emotional disturbance when deliberating.

Taglianetti was represented at trial in 2013 by Ned Barone, county public defender.

“The lower court completely failed to exercise any discretion concerning the belated filing of the 250.10 notice, noticing the intention to present a mental health defense,” Thompson said during oral arguments.

The justices, however, rejected that notion, stating any error that might have occurred at trial was harmless when viewed with Taglianetti’s “overwhelming” guilt based on the evidence. In their decision, the justices noted that Taglianetti “engaged in a planned and calculated murder.”

“Defendant sent threatening emails to the victim twice in the month before the murder,” the justices wrote in their decision. “On the day of the murder, (Taglianetti) left his Virginia home in the early morning hours and arrived at the victim’s workplace in Western New York in the afternoon, but the victim was not there. (He) then proceeded to the victim’s home nearby and awaited the victim, who arrived home that evening and was fatally shot once in the chest and twice in the back at close range. Defendant then drove back to Virginia, throwing away the victim’s cell phone along the way.”

“The People therefore presented overwhelming evidence that (Taglianetti) never lost control over his actions and thus was not acting under extreme emotional distress,” the justices wrote.

Chautauqua County District Attorney Patrick Swanson on Friday said the evidence used to convict Taglianetti in 2013 was indeed “overwhelming.” He credited the work by John Zuroski, Chautauqua County assistant district attorney, who spoke on behalf of the county in February, to ensure that the murder conviction was upheld.

“He’s been involved with the case from the inception. He did a great job arguing,” Swanson told The Post-Journal.